Guillermo Farinas, very confusing

What to think about Cuban activist Guillermo Farinas, about whom there is no unanimity of opinion, even among Cubans?

European Parliament speaker Jerzy Nuzek praised him when he received the Parliament’s Andrei Sakharov human rights prize, saying Farinas is “ready to sacrifice and risk his own health and life as a means of pressure to achieve change in Cuba,” and that he is “carrying the hopes for all of those who care for freedom, human rights, and democracy.”

To Cuban writer Zoe Valdes, though, he’s “far from reaching the stature of the man who gives name to the prize, not even the stature of his predecessors” Oswaldo Paya and the Damas de Blanco, earlier winners of the Sakharov prize. “It is proven,” she writes, “that one eats better in Cuba on a hunger strike aided by the government than with the ration book.”

And a reader points out that Tania Quintero, a former independent journalist who now lives abroad, doesn’t take him too seriously either.

Then at Babalu, they tell us to take Farinas seriously when he speaks about EU policy (don’t change it) but not to take him seriously when he speaks about U.S. policy (change it, drop travel restrictions).

Yo te digo a tí…